The present invention relates to dehydrated or freeze-dried confections obtained from a starting material containing a milk content and a sweetener content. In the following description the freeze-dried ice cream represents dehydrated frozen confections.
Freeze-dried ice creams are known as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 47-19011, Patent Laid-open Applications Nos. 62-244350 and 1-218554. The first-mentioned patent further teaches how to produce freeze-dried confections having various fanciful shapes. The disclosure of each publication is incorporated by reference.
The problem in common with these known processes is that they select the sweetener content without considering the later occurring freeze-drying process. No special care is taken in selecting from granulated sugar, glucose, fructose (fruit sugar), or glutinous starch syrup.
In fact, no ice cream presupposes that they will be freeze-dried at a later stage, and therefore, the ice creams so treated are liable to cracks. Cracks spoil the appearance of solid ice creams and their commodity value degenerates. In addition, a crack prevents the formation of an intended shape of ice cream. Furthermore, if ice cream is to be freeze-dried without the possibility of cracking, the size of ice cream is necessarily reduced; according to an experiment the maximum size is 22 mm×23 mm×15 mm.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 1-218554 teaches how to cover food with edible films such as oblate. The cover may be effective to prevent cracking but it is labor-consuming to cover individual ice creams. On the other hand, the cover, even if it is very thin, is likely to spoil the flavor of ice creams.
There is another proposal for preventing cracking in the freezing and drying process. The proposed process teaches that a reduced amount of solid content is used in thc starting material. This proposed process may be effective to prevent cracking, but the resulting ice creams are susceptible to vibration and shock during transportation, and are less resistant to moisture, thereby causing collapse of the shape.